


Shiro Ship Week 2019

by kitsune13tamlin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Voltron: Vehicle Force (1984)
Genre: F/M, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Shiro Ship Week 2019, he's a bi guy, likashi, we have a very small canoe but its got the best oarspeople
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-06-28 04:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19804294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsune13tamlin/pseuds/kitsune13tamlin
Summary: so its Shiro Ship Week over on tumblr and I'm contributing with our small but determined Lisa/Shiro ship.  With prompts like 'wounds' 'supernatural' and 'AU' you know its going to be an interesting ride.  Chapter 1 is from Shiro's Garrison days and a training mission that's gone wrong.  Very very wrong.





	1. wounds

He woke up with a groan and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Everything hurt.

In fact, he was pretty sure his bones weren’t in the right order anymore, just a mass jumble inside whatever shape his body had to be in and, with his head hurting as much as it did, he couldn’t even seem to care. Instinct had him twitching his right hand all the same and to his surprise not only could e feel it but it moved too. That was - promising - and it gave him focus as well, dragging him back into the moment even if the immediate moment was all his brain wanted to, or was capable of, focusing on. Careful he squinted open a single eye, because even his eyelids hurt, and was greeted by too much light until his automatic wince dipped his chin and he was suddenly enveloped in shadows.

Soft shadows.

He inhaled and smelled rocket fuel and antiseptic and the faint trace of old blood. His other eye slammed open in alarm, letting in too much sudden light and he grit his teeth and squeezed it narrow. And then, under all the alarming smells, he smelled -

Floral. Something light he knew was water lily because he’d read the shampoo bottle in the shower one day.

Lisa….

His eyes shut before he was aware of it and he almost fell backward inside his mind the relief and instinct to relax was so strong. If Lisa was with him than everything was all right. Or - it would be. Between the two of them there was nothing they couldn’t figure out or fight their way around and her calm nature had bolstered him so many times on missions he naturally responded to her presence with faith.

Except -

His eyes squinted open again, one full of light and one of dark, and the one in the light looked around. His left arm shifted, found that it was around her and tightened a little, instinctive protective motion he wasn’t even entirely aware of. 

He recognized the ceiling before he recognized the rest of the room.

Hospital. They were in the hospital at the Garrison. The infirmary. He knew what the private rooms looked like, recognized the sterile chair, the pale painted walls, the hard plastic of the monitor from the corner of his eyes. The bed they were both lying on. A single bed that was almost too small to hold both of them and he pulled her a little bit more onto him despite the way his body hurt when he did. To keep her from slipping off the edge - and because having her pressed down heavy against him filled an empty ache inside his chest that didn’t exactly make sense but that he blamed on needing to know she was safe.

Accident. There had been an accident. He intuited it and then, the mental door open, his brain started to fill him in, distracting him from the sick way his stomach always felt when he woke up to find himself staring at this particular ceiling. 

It had been a training exercise. For the cadets. He’d been one of the flight leaders, taking them out into the canyons that rose and tunneled through the desert near the Garrison. Advanced maneuvers for his squad but he could have done them in his sleep. One of the kids had over-reacted during a dodge maneuver, jerked the stick too hard, sent his shuttle sideways too hard and too fast while they were still inside the narrow canyon walls. It happened, sometimes the best pilots in the simulator couldn’t handle the pressure of real time flight. Shiro remembered the sheer fear that had poured cold water down through his veins. He’d maneuvered his own ship, gotten next to the kid and tipped their wing with his own. Gotten them clear of the looming wall just in time -

And the kid had overcompensated again in response. Already frightened by their first mistake, they’d panicked. Swung too hard in response. They’d gouged his wing, hit a panel. He’d lost his lift and half of his maneuverability. Snapped an order for his squad to lift out of the canyons, for the Base to manually take over the kid’s ship and land it, and then forgotten about them entirely as he’d focused on trying to slow his ship’s forward rush, trying to level it enough to land in a controlled crash. It had only partially worked and only because he’d pulled every single trick he knew, and a few that really shouldn’t have worked, out of his ass. He’d had to eject.

Except, remembering now - the lever hadn’t responded.

They were supposed to be fool-proof but anyone in the Garrison could tell you nothing was every fool-proof. He’d been trapped in the spiraling falling ship and he’d very quickly hoped his twin would forgive him one day if today was the day he died. Accidents happened. Even when you weren’t out in the vacuum of space, they could still kill you. He’d focused on trying to find a soft place, sand hopefully instead of sheer wall, to try for a controlled crash.

The thing was, he didn’t remember that happening.

He just remembered one of the canyon walls coming up too fast and the first bone shuddering jerk and the sky had filled the cockpit -

He’d watch the entire control panel jump up to meet his face.

And then he’d woken up here.

His exhale shook and his arm tightened around Lisa a bit more and he shrunk down a little to press his face closer into her hair in instinct response. He had known the risks when he’d signed on, all those years ago as a kid. There was a plaque on the Administrations Building, right in the center of the campus. Made out of metal from a comet, shining because it was always polished, it listed every single life that had been lost in man’s flight to the stars. Starting with Laika and Yuri Gagarin and straight through to the first failed Mars colony. It was a smaller list than it could have been, that was a relief

But it was also a list with a long blank space underneath it.

Ready to add more names.

So you knew, when you joined, when you graduated, when you continued to follow the space program. You knew and you accepted that you could die - or anyone you cared about in the program could die. That was one of the prices of getting to fly between the stars. 

Shiro had always understood he could die young. Even before the issues with his body had come to light, he’d known and accepted it. He had to. Because the alternative was never leaving earth’s atmosphere, never stretching as far as he could, reaching after the stars that called to him, had called to him all his life. He didn’t want to die. But some things were more important. And he’d rather die with the stars in his eyes, as many times as he could, than trapped on Earth, only seeing them through the thick density of Earth’s atmosphere.

Which didn’t mean he was eager to die. Or that he wasn’t fighting it - and had tried to fight it during the crash - with everything he had. There was still too much he wanted to do. Still too much his heart needed him to do.

He turned his head and shut his eyes, rested his face in Lisa’s hair. She’d been out with her own squad, training her own students nearby. She must have heard about the crash and come here to be with him. They had an odd friendship. She could read him like a book, sometimes to the point he wished she couldn’t. And she never told him no or tried to hold him back, even when she maybe should have. Sometimes she managed to divert him, sometimes, in her soft sensible way she would help him find a different way to do whatever he was aiming for - but when she couldn’t get him to sidestep, she would be right there next to him. Not because she was careless or reckless - but because if he was determined to do something that strongly, Lisa would be there on a knee, cupping her hands to boost him up. She had a great deal of faith in him. Probably too much. But he had a great deal of faith in her as well. 

He wondered how long he’d been in here if she’d had time to land her own squad and spend enough time at his bedside that all the doctors and nurses and command staff had already gone away before she could crawl into it next to him. Lisa wasn’t generous with her physical affection for most people but when she did give it, it was almost effusive, in a quiet ‘Lisa’ kind of way. This wouldn’t be the first time they’d napped together like this, though usually it was passing out from studying or later from missions. He always slept deep when she was lying against him. Some of the other staff found it odd - but Shiro would have chopped off his own foot before he would have been willing to give up the steady deep comfort being cuddled with Lisa gave him. The habit had started when they were just kids, star pupils that pushed themselves too hard in their training and naturally had ended up working, and physically crashing, together. Being adults had only changed how often they got away with it.

People always mistook them for dating. Sometimes….. Shiro wished they were. He thought she was beautiful in her special moonborn looks with eyes so dark they could get him to do anything and so very rarely asked. She made his soul feel - steadier, just by coming to stand near him. And more than once he’d had dreams about her, vague and frustrating and hungry that had woken him up to messy sheets and lonely fading emotions. But their timing had always been bad - and neither of them had ever pushed it and it was to the point he was starting to wonder if he would always wonder about what could have been between them if they’d only found a quiet moment when both of them were free. He shifted, managed to stroke a hand down her dark hair, found it tangled and the accidental catch of his fingers in one of those snarls pulled and woke her up, making him feel guilty even as she voiced a short wordless sound in a sleep thick voice and moved to bury her face against the hollow of his throat and shoulder.

Except she hissed and then she was shifting around clumsily and Shiro was trying to move to give her room without waking up all the aches and pains in his body and there was dark hair everywhere and moving hands and, somehow, the way they always did, they ended up comfortably back together, with Lisa still next to him, toes tucked under his leg but leaning over him this time, worry starting to wake up in her tired eyes. He caught the side of her face with his palm before the fear could turn solid. Smiled at her. And she smiled back, all the lean angles softening right out of her face as her body went soft for him. For a very long minute, eyes holding, he simply soaked in the comfort her being there filled him up to the brim with. He was alive. They were together. Everything would work out.

Then she was exhaling a long, low hum of a sound and snuggling back down into his arms and he didn’t mind if it hurt a little bit physically because it felt wonderful all the same. Careful he wrapped his arms around her again and turned his face into her hair and went back to sleep.

She was gone when he woke up and he rolled his tongue against the inside of his dry mouth and squinted eyes open against the light from the ceiling, wondering if they ever turned it off and knowing they did but only in cycles. Turning his head he saw Adam in the chair next to the bed, reading something and he cleared his throat to get his attention. Adam’s face went through a leaping range of emotions and Shiro felt guilty for that - and grateful the scolding he saw on Adam’s face was put aside, at least for the moment. He just wanted to be relieved he could be there with him. There was nothing he could apologize for anyway. For the next span of time, it was enough and what he’d wanted and afterward, with Adam gingerly holding his hand, worried about hurting him, Shiro had looked around the room again and asked thickly:

“Where’s Lisa?”

For once Adam didn’t slip side-eyes at him. Instead he inhaled, a sign Shiro had come to recognize meant hard news, alarming him even before Adam spoke.

“In the room across hall. The doctors say she’ll recover completely. The reinforcement procedures done to her bones when she was a kid saved her.”

Shiro felt as if the floor had just dropped out from under him and whatever Adam saw on his face must have scared him because the other man was quick to continue.

“It’s okay. She’s going to be okay. Gravity enhanced moon bones, remember?” He shook his head, looked conflicted, and rueful. “I’ll buy her flowers from you. Hell, I’ll buy her flowers from both of us. I owe her big time too. If she hadn’t gotten her shuttle under yours at the last second and give you that lift to clear the last mesa so you could crash on a flat surface instead of against a wall…..”

Adam’s voice trailed off because it was a sentence no one wanted finished.


	2. supernatural

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things don't always go the way we planned, whether in world history or our personal lives. Shiro never got his chance to reach for the moon and beyond. But you don't love like that and not be noticed. Sometimes Fate is much quieter than expected when it arrives.

“But when a shuttle finally arrived - everyone was gone.” Shiro closed his notebook and looked up at the class and wasn’t at all surprised to see everyone’s eyes riveted on him. He would have smiled, if what he was talking about wasn’t such a tragedy. Even the kids that usually sat in the back so they could catch a quick nap were wide awake and hanging on his words. He slipped off his glasses and folded them.

“No one knows where they went - or why. There are guesses. There are always guesses and some of them are probably closer to the truth than others. But the meteor shower wiped out any solid evidence and, for now, the first moon colony and its lost settlers is still a mystery. Earth’s first collective tragedy in space and one that every colony since has remembered.”

He let it hang in the silence then, the loss, the emptiness. Unlike lost colonies on Earth, no one had any fantasies about anyone being left alive elsewhere from that first moon colony. Roanoke it was not. No one could pretend they just went elsewhere.

Except the people that believed in alien abduction - but that wasn’t his area of study. Shiro didn’t do crop circles or aliens building the pyramids. Not when mankind was clever enough on its own. He let the missing colony, man’s first, but not last, attempt into space, have its moment of silence and then he picked up his notebook and walked back to his desk, pulling out his messenger bag.

“So - extra credit. Anyone that wants to can turn in an essay on the first missing space colony and pick and defend a theory on what happened to them. Get it turned in by the time we get our first live feed from the Mars colony. Which should be in two weeks, give or take. I’ll count it as a quarter of your mid-term grade.” That had their attention and he looked up at the shift in the chairs and smiled. The bell rang.

“God speed.”

_______________________________________________________

She approached him after class, waiting until the other student with their questions had finished and rushed off to their next course - or their afternoon nap. He didn’t recognize her, which was strange for him because he tried to familiarize himself with all his students’ faces. But she was long dark hair and deep dark eyes and skin so pale it looked like it had never seen the sun and he felt that he should be able to place her, felt the vague familiar sigh of her in his mind - but that same mind refused to tell him why or where he should recognize her from. She was about the right age for a new professor from her looks or even a student that had held themselves back a few years with other things, give or take perhaps a few years working on a masters or just exploring things in life outside of University courses. But he knew all the staff on campus. He gave her a friendly smile, willing to be friendly and helpful because that was his job as well as his nature, lost student or visiting observer alike.

She smiled back, something that started small and quiet and spread until it melted through her dark eyes with soft light - and he utterly forgot, for just that single moment, that he as a teacher now and impervious to student charms. His hand tightened on the strap of his bag and then went lax and, for just that second, he thought he smelled moonlight, sharp and icy and metal.

“You told the story as if you cared,” she said.

He felt himself flush internally, realized he felt proud, as if an opinion that mattered to him had just approved and gave an exhale laugh, almost silent, to shake off the feeling. 

“They’re important, like Yuri Gagarin. They took the ultimate risk, put their lives on the line, so we could get a foothold on the way to the stars. They shouldn’t be forgotten.”

Her head tilted, just a little, so she could look at him from the sides of her eyes, as if the angle showed her something new about him without shifting her face away from him. Polite even as she seemed to peer. A long lock of dark hair fell across her cheek, an older hairstyle but one that framed her almost translucent face perfectly.

“You’ve been at this a long time,” she was still smiling, something softer now, something almost - fond? Wistful? She made it sound as if it were a question, but the way she said it didn’t feel like one.. He looked at her closer, brows flicking down for a moment. Sure he should know her or not know her but his mind wouldn’t settle on one or the other. She looked back at him, patiently letting him examine her face until he realized he’d been doing it for too long, and shifted.

“Sorry,” he apologized and settled back, resting a hip on the edge of his desk. She shook her head and her long hair swayed.

“Its nice to be seen sometimes,” she dismissed his scrutiny. Then pointed a long finger at him, pale as moon light. He remembered her prompt. Exhaled quietly.

“When I was a kid - I wanted to fly. In space. I studied everything I could get my hands on and the Moon Colony, the first one - it stuck with me. For a while there I was going to grow up to become an astronaut and solve the mystery myself.” His smile was bitter but it was an old ache and so he almost meant it when he smiled. Shrugged his shoulder and his empty jacket sleeve swung in the air where it was pinned to itself. “Drunk driver had other plans.” He met her eyes. Realized, with vague puzzlement: “I have no idea why I told you that.”

“Because you needed to tell someone,” she answered, soft look still in her dark eyes, still focused on him. “And I always listen.”

“You’re not one of my students are you?”

Her smile came again - and again, even though he knew what to expect, his breath went still in his chest as it bloomed, spilling off of her face and into the air around them this time.

“Don’t I look studious enough?” she teased lightly and he shook his head. Found himself smiling as well but -

“I’d remember you, if you’d been in my class before.”

“I like being memorable,” she gave it easily, still smiling that quiet moonlight smile that filled the room the same way. “But no. I’m not one of your students. I came because I wanted to hear you talk about Moon Colony Knossos.”

His topics were scheduled and it wasn’t the first time someone had shown up for a specific one. For a history teacher, he had a lot of stories that people seemed to want to take the time to hear. And the lost Moon Colony held a special place in the Earth’s collective conscience. 

“Did I do a good job of it?” he asked, feeling better now that he’d placed her. Or - not placed her. Her smile made it easy to relax and tease gently back. He got another smile for his quip and thought it was too easy to start trying for them.

“I was riveted,” she said and while that might be too excessive a word, her voice said she’d deeply approved. He felt the flush of pride again.

“I have to give the lecture again in two hours.”

She was surely a student and he shouldn’t be encouraging this - whatever this was. But she tipped her head again and looked at him and he wondered what she saw when she did that no one else did. Her finger moved, another gesture, impossible to understand beyond the signal for his attention.

“You keep it in your pocket. Hold it in your hand there when you talk. You’ve had it for years. Where it goes, I do too. I will be here to listen when you speak. I like being able to be here to listen when you speak.”

He heard the entire declaration but only the first part caught him immediately, jerking him a little upright against the desk and his hand immediately went down to his pant’s pocket. Touched the small metal object in it instinctively, reassuring himself it was still there. Because it made no sense that she’d know what it was, not well enough to speculate what he was toying with absently in his pocket as he talked. He’d looked down when he’d touched it, instinct, and it was only then, when she wasn’t in his eyes, that he heard the rest of what she’d said and his head jerked back up again. 

The room in front of him was empty and the door was still shut.

For a second - he smelled moonlight, icy and cold and metal. 

Cautious, he made a circuit of his desk and then the room but it was empty and the door took too long to close on its slow hinges to have been opened recently. Stopping in the middle of the room, he finally reached into his pocket and pulled out his talisman.

It had taken a lot of favors and he suspected at least one pity pull to get it. But he still had connections in the Space Program, ones that remembered the top pilot he’d once been and the future he’s once almost had. And so, when a handful of mementos from the First Moon Colony had been released to the public, on the anniversary of its last communication, Shiro had managed to get his hands on one. 

A little statue of a lion carved out of black asteroid stone that the crew had been given from a country as a good luck charm before they’d gone. It featured in almost all their official photos, held up by one or another of them with a smile. It had been found in the deserted command center on the ruined empty base by the rescue crew that had arrived too late. Of course it had immediately been tagged as ‘bad luck’ but Shiro had been drawn to it and, frankly, he thought he’d already had his run of bad luck when that drunk driver had swerved into his lane at three in the morning and stolen a year of his life and his future in space from him.

It rested in his palm now, cool despite his body heat, and he felt a shiver down his spine.

Moonlight and empty space.

Shiro didn’t believe in ghosts any more than he believed in aliens. But -

His hand closed around the small figurine and he looked around the room again.

“See me after class,” he said to the empty, listening air. “I think its my turn to listen.”


	3. memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro has memories. A lot of them are the stuff of nightmares. But - some of them aren't.

He remembered.

He remembered his first day of weightless training, when they’d all kitted out and hopped in the pool at the Garrison. The water had been a little cold, coming out of the climate control of the main building but it had felt honest and reminded him, just a little of his times with his family at the beach when he’d been a child, before life had gotten too busy for family vacations. It wasn’t salt water though and he’d sunk in it, air tank and body mass helping pull him down. He’d sucked in air through the filter, surprised at his own sinking and turned his head in the strange muted noise of the water. And seen the moon girl, the transfer from the fledgling colony there, her already too large eyes even larger through the shield of her face mask, her face even paler in the water, surrounded by her dark hair. He’d realized, then, that there was no water on the moon, that this might be the most of it she’d ever seen in one place and it was almost guaranteed that she couldn’t swim. He’d worried, suddenly, with the budding instinct that would make him a team leader and the long habit of being an older brother, that she might panic, or at least be afraid, suddenly being in such an alien environment for her, unprepared for how it would feel despite expecting something different. His other classmates settling in the water around him, he stretched out a hand, meaning to touch her or catch her harness or - something that could be reassuring. Except before his hand even moved a fraction in the water, he watched her thin shoulders curl inward tightly and then arch back outward again in a sudden rush as a smile flared so wide across her face it threatened to knock her breather out of her mouth or let in water.

And then she pushed up with her toes and arched, arms spread wide, and executed the most graceful backflip he’d ever seen, bubbles rising to the surface from her breather and dancing around her like laughter.

Her body twisted into a spiral like dancing on the down fall, dark braid spinning in slow motion with the rest of her lean body and she arched before her face could hit the bottom of the pool, using her momentum to pull back up like a dolphin, back curving in a bow. Her eyes were closed but once she was upright again they flashed open and even through the water and the mask and the slight distance between them, he could see they were full of light. For one surprised, unexpected second, they unintentionally met his -

And he realized he was grinning so hard it was hurting his cheeks.

For a second they grinned at each other like kids sharing the best secret they knew - and then the instructors voice came over the buds in their ears, calling their attention back to the class and the lesson and the moment broke as they both looked away to focus.

But Shiro never worried about the moon girl in the water again.

_The water hit him like a punch, forced its way into his throat before he was ready for it and he twisted his head, coughing and sputtering. The water tasted dead, stale and lifeless, like metal. Old. He wondered, somewhere far in the back of his head, whether whatever filters they used to recycle their water were strong enough to remove everything that could infect or kill a human. Like the food he was served it didn’t matter in reality. He didn’t have a choice. The guards looming over him, three drones and an actual alien, all looked down at him and only the alien laughed. The next droid dumped another bucket full of the dead water on him and this time he was conscious and turned his head so his bruised face wouldn’t take the brunt of it, even if the flowing water knocked all the half dried blood off and started the dozen cuts and abrasions on his face bleeding again. It was still water and sometimes he couldn’t tell if being filthy or being thirsty was the worse torment. He locked his arms so that his elbows and forearms resting on the ground could hold him steady and he sucked stale water off his lips and waited for the next bucket of tepid water. Most times they used a hose to spray down the prisoners when they left the Arena - but he was finding out that, at least this far down the level of importance, things tended to break down and the buckets were for when the hose wasn’t working. The buckets hurt less but got them less clean. Another splashed over his battered body and he tried to enjoy it while it lasted._

He remembered.

The first time his class all went up into space it was as passengers on a shuttle delivering supplies to the space station in orbit around Earth. For most of them, it was the first time they’d experienced G-forces on that level but for Shiro the heavy push down against his body was only a rush, fueling the excitement through him at being free of Earth’s atmosphere and closer to the stars than he’d ever been before, even if it was only to the nearby space station. Everyone in his class was either grinning the way he was or looking uncomfortable. Except the moon girl. Lisa. Who was just looking ahead and watching the pilots in front of them and what they did with their instruments instead of looking out the canopy in front of them as the world fell away and the stars fell into view. For a second, Shiro lost some of his excitement in annoyance. Just because she’d been born on the moon didn’t mean that it shouldn’t be exciting, or at least important, to her to be leaving Earth’s gravity and heading into space. Except he checked himself, his grandfather’s wordless voice somewhere in the back of his ears as he remembered that she’d had treatments to maker her bones and organs solid and strong enough to function in Earth’s gravity. She’d never talked about it, but he had heard some of their classmates speculating about the perfect thumb sized round scars that sometimes showed on her wrists when her long sleeves rode up. Maybe leaving and returning to Earth had bad connotations for her, about regular, painful treatments on Earth as a child. The thought sobered him, especially when he saw the way her already sparse habit of blinking had stopped entirely as she starred at the control panels instead of the emerging stars. He tore his eyes away, looked back at the approaching stars and forgot, for a little while, everything else as they filled his eyes and his chest but later on, as Lisa unlatched herself from her harness and went dancing and spinning and gracefully swimming through the weightless cabin, smiling like the rising sun with pleasure at the weightlessness, while the rest of them bumbled around and bounced off things adjusting to the new environment, Shiro made himself a silent note to be more gentle with her and the way he thought about her. Already she was adjusting to Garrison life to the point it was getting easier and easier to forget she wasn’t from Earth. But she wasn’t and her experiences weren’t the same as everyone else’s. He would make a point to try to remember though.

Later on, years later, when he’d learned to read her face for the secrets she wouldn’t tell, he’d find out that entry and lift-off caused her physical pain as the unnatural gravity constricted her already densely engineered body.

_The ship was jumping again. Or worm-holing. Or - whatever method of transportation the aliens used to get from one point of the universe to the other so quickly._

_For the most part the ship he was in stayed stationary - or at least didn’t make those jumps that signaled travel to a different point on the galactic map. Shiro didn’t know whether it powered along while in solar systems and between them or not - he assumed it must. But there were no windows in hell and he had no way of judging what was happening outside the metal ribs that encased his prison. But - sometimes the ship seemed to elongate suddenly, the far side of the room stretching away forever in front of him and then a hard weight would slam him against whatever surface it wanted to, ceiling, floor, far wall and pin him there as if it were a giant opponent pinning him to the Arena sand about to take its victory from his numb body and it would hold him there, struggling to breathe for what felt like lifetimes as his lungs compressed and his bones ached in protest and tears squeezed out of his eyes and any new wounds tore open again. Finally it would let him go and he’d drop onto the floor if he wasn’t already there and lay there, shuddering and boneless and trying to remember how to breathe in something other than short gasps. The only thing it reminded him of, the only thing that made sense, was a shuttle breaking out of a gravity well and since they weren’t planet bound - or at least he assumed most times they weren’t, he had to guess that it was those jumps to other sections of space. It occurred to him that it didn’t make sense to incapacitate a crew during one of them the way the jumps always wrecked him -_

_And it followed in summary that whatever methods they used to cushion the effects on the ship’s crew couldn’t be bothered to apply to the prisoners in the cells below._

He remembered.

Laughing. Laughing until his cheeks hurt and his sides ached and the air got thin and it didn’t even matter. Because Lisa had been laughing with him and they’d been wrapped up In each other, spinning through the air, her hair like sea ferns in the weightlessness of the cockpit and all the stars in the entire universe bright and welcoming in the canopy behind them. Because they’d passed their final trial, cleared that last hurtle, beaten the last scheduled challenge and they were both pilots now. Real honest to God, have a pass to explore the stars - or at least their solar system - Garrison certified pilots and when they’d both docked at the station at the same time, knowing they’d both passed, it had been the most natural, and best feeling in the universe to meet in the docking bay in the middle and hug and laugh and spin until they were both dizzy and breathless and lightheaded, all the years of stress and tension and tightly wound fear all released in a single heady instant.

Oh, the graduation ceremony would come later to make it official and then the stress and tension and tamped down fear would come back in spades as the tests became ones the universe threw at them and never warned for -

But in that moment they’d been free and giddy and so glad to be able to celebrate that precious perfect moment with the other. Takashi’s heart had never felt so light and weightless in his chest and he’d never been so happy to let a moment stretch as the feeling of his closest friend in his arms and the future bright as the stars spread out before him.

_“Ro!”_

_He wasn’t even out of the Black lion’s jaws when he heard his name and there was a rushing blur that gave him a second’s warning before a body slammed into his almost hard enough to knock them both over._

_Except he knew that weighted lean body and that dark streak of hair and that moon pale skin and his arms were already open and his body braced before she’d even finished the sprint into his embrace. And, again, they were laughing - and crying maybe - and clinging to each other and if, this time, it was in the gravity of a planet and not in the void of a space station, the weightless feeling in his chest and around his heart was the same. The pain and the trials and the horrors of the past were finished. And, soon enough, their weights and pains would come back and - again - the universe would find new trails and pains to throw at them without warning_

_But in that moment there was only coming home and Lisa waiting and the giddy freeing feeling of having all the stars in the universe laid out in front of them like a promise._

_Yet again, the future would start after this moment with all it would bring. But this time she’d be with him and as much as he should have been jaded by this point -his memories were never going to leave him or go away -_

_He couldn’t wait to start._


	4. AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the world had slipped. Just a half step to the side, hardly enough, with day to day life going on, for anyone else to notice. Decades went by. The change was gradual. And Japan began to remember what it had forgotten as the yokai of its ancestors began to return.

He hit the ground running, the shock absorbing up through his legs. Ahead of him, his quarry all but flew and he cursed under his breath at its ease of movement over the rooftops. His backup was coming but he had no idea where from anymore or if they could even pinpoint him in time. It was down to just him and his target and he was damned if he was going to let it out of his sight. Another gap in the rooftops and he took the leap that was too far for him, training kicking in as his fingers caught the lip of the building despite that and he hauled himself up, rolling to regain momentum. In the neon glare from the city, the darkness of the shadows was darker and the lights burned their afterimages into his retinas. It was easy to get lost up here, easier still to lose someone and his head swung as he reoriented, eyes flickering, night vision flaring and overlaying everything in sickly green. 

There!

His target was moving, three rooftops over, heading away from the business district, no doubt aiming to lose itself in the ragged rat holes of the slums. Takashi knew he was pushing his limits. His breathing was already ragged in his ears and his body was very patiently silent, a stern warning of when it did decide to present him with the bill for what he’d put it through tonight. Gritting his teeth, he threw the last of his energy into a flat out sprint, dangerous in the dark but he’d never catch the target any other way. One roof, two. Three. A fourth. He focused on the moving shape in front of him and when it jumped the next gap, he threw himself from his own spot further back, pushing hard, muscles of his thighs burning. Sweat burned his eyes but they were focused and narrow. 

In front of him, his target felt him coming and there was a sudden updraft as its body lifted, response to the flutter of caped arms. Teeth bared, Takashi’s hands shot out and he wrapped thickly gloved fingers around shifting legs. There was a scream and he dug his fingers in hard. Both he and his lighter prey went down in a tangle on the flat surface of the roof and Takashi was careful to land on the bottom. There was a flurry of feathers, sick and clotted in the damp night air. Landing knocked the wind out of him but it was hardly the first time he’d had to make due without air and his leg scissored up. Hard. The impact earned another scream, of anger more than pain and his target fell out of the half stance it had managed to achieve. Takashi used the momentum to whirl himself forward, grappling overlong arms as thin as twigs. Edged points slashed out of the flurry of dark cape and half glimpsed body and they drew his teeth on edge at the noise of them squealing over the protective plate of his body armor. A large sack dropped from the target with a heavy thud and Takashi threw all of his weight forward. There were more sharp edges, filed like steel on the tip of each of his opponent’s fingers and something lurched out of the dark cape at him, snapping at his face. Even through the cover of his mask he could feel the pressure as it caught and snapped one of the vulnerable air hoses his mask had like paper, the hiss as it sealed itself off to prevent contamination loud in his ears. In an old trick he hadn’t learned from his training, he brought his heavy boot down on the instep of the target and when it howled in pain, he caught the back of its head and brought his knee up as he pulled down sideways. There was a crunch and a jerk from the body and he made it a point to twist the head now that he had a good grip on it. The bones were like aluminum but he had the muscle to back up his effort and he felt them pop and then break. The body dropped and even then he made sure to focus on it, not blinking as he unstrapped the firearm from his thigh and calmly put two bullets in its head. This close the impact as they exploded from inside showered him with gore. What might have been a beak rolled to the side.

With the steel toe of his boot, he rolled it back against the body for easy collection.

For a long moment, he simply hunched there, hands on his knees, bent over the body and breathing hard, head turning from side to side in a weak attempt to spot any other dangers. Nothing attacked him and the body at his feet with it’s ruined head stayed down. Concentrating, Takashi finally straightened and moved over to where he’d watched the bag land. It was filthy, coated in old, dark stains and fresher, still damp ones. Hands steady, he reached down and undid the cord that held it shut, pulling the bag open to reveal it’s much wider mouth than expected.

Curled tight into herself, long hair still in a braid, a little girl slept undisturbed.

Takashi let himself exhale, the only sign he would let himself give and reached down. Gentle, careful, he lifted the tiny body and cradled her carefully against his metal plate chest. Turning his head, he saw the traveling lights of his backup and he stood still, waiting for them to come. For the little girl though, soft, he murmured:

“Sleep on, sweetheart. No Tengu nightmares for you tonight.”

__________

He was alone in his apartment when she slipped in the door. Considering he locked down his private quarters like a water-tight submarine, that would have been impressive enough. The fact she’d just walked out of his previously empty closet really just put the cherry on top of things.

By that point it was probably close to dawn and somewhere over the city there might have even been a hint of weak daylight struggling through the thick clouds, managing to touch some of the taller buildings briefly. On underground subways business men and women packed themselves onto gleaming high security trains or dingy privately owned ones and went to work, studiously ignoring slurping sounds out of the public bathrooms or the glint of eyes at the wrong height from shadowed doorways and alleys that never saw the sun. The city’s police force would be out and about and the hired guards and thugs would do the rest. For the day, Tokyo would sleep under its cloud of acid and smog, neon lights dimmed, refusing, no matter what had come crawling back out of the past, to give up its identity as a salaryman’s city. It was time for the yokai and yurei - and Takashi - to retreat into the shadows and, in Takashi’s case, get some sleep. But first -

“You were right.”

“Of course I was,” she was already across the room and searching through his refrigerator for something she could pretend was edible. She did pause to look at him from the edges of her dark eyes and the ears on top of her head twitched back a little to show him her focus was as much on him as the day old Chinese in his fridge. She took the Chinese but her voice was a soft thrum that sent the wash of warmth through him it always did.

“Thank you. Takashi.”

He felt his shoulders relax then, something the hot shower and quick beer after hadn’t done and for the first time since he’d started the mission, his lips relaxed into a smile. He shifted a little on the chair and she came over the instant he did, carrying her noodles and two bottles of soda with her to settle into his lap at his invitation and lean into him. He wrapped both arms around her and held her tight until she sighed herself and he felt the tension draining out of her lean body as well.

Her long tail, soft as down, curled around his hip and waist before draping off the rest of the chair.

A kitsune that loved children. He supposed Japan’s strange misty past of half shadowed myth and folklore had given them stranger things after the Torii gates had all opened. She’d saved him from a yuuki-onna in the walk in freezer of a restaurant he’d been investigating, he’d saved her from a tsuchi-gumo that had taken over the back room of a night club and they’d both saved each other during a battle with an o-dokuro that had taken up most of downtown. His friends and teammates knew her as Lisa, the slim, dark haired librarian that tended to be found on his couch reading the latest trashy romance novel and liked history documentaries. He thought that Keith and Ryou might suspect, or be beginning to suspect, otherwise at least. But Takashi knew her for what she was - and he loved her despite knowing better. Curled up in his lap, worrying over the bruises on his knuckles with her slender fingers and soothing them away as much as she could without raising suspicion when he went to work tomorrow -

He thought, despite knowing better - she might love him too.


	5. royal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they're absolutely sure they're behaving. So how are complete strangers picking up on the fact they're together?

“What exactly did you tell them?”

Lisa’s voice wasn't accusing but there was a weight, soft though it was on each of her words, that had him straightening up from the computer terminal he was pecking away at, sensing trouble. His back twinged as he did, which was just what he got for being tall when their hosts on this planet considered four foot the highest anyone had ever gotten and designed all their buildings accordingly. He was just lucky the ceilings were - generally - tall enough in the underground labyrinth of burrows they lived in for him and his team to get around. He looked at Lisa’s face, saw the way her eyebrows were down and that look alone dedicated his entire attention to her. Paying attention didn’t help him answer her question though.

“Which part?” he asked.

She frowned in response, lips thinning as she pressed them together, a habit when she was thinking, annoyed, both - or trying to hold back a smile. He was pretty sure it wasn’t a smile. She drifted over to him, something that happened whenever they were in the same room for long enough and happened faster when something was bothering her. He shifted automatically to make room for her, studying her face while she wasn’t paying attention. Lisa was a trooper but her face always gave away little hints he’d learned to watch for if she wasn’t getting enough sleep or food or a planet’s gravity was bothering her. To his relief he didn’t see anything beyond the usual and something in him relaxed, just a little, in response. He relaxed more once she was close by, something that was automatic and responsive. They didn’t touch. Not when they were on an official mission. They might be in a relationship - finally, his mind added - but they were both professionals and knew they were representing their different branches of Voltron. It was enough to have her standing at his side again and his eyes trailed over her, filling them with her again as if she’d been away for months instead of a few hours. Her hand rose, fingers flexing briefly between them, before remembering and retreating to rest lightly against her own chest instead of his. Her hip shifted. Angled her toward him subtly but he felt it all the same and his body shifted to mirror the move.

“I’m not sure,” she finally couldn’t sort it herself anymore and offered it to him. Raised her eyes to meet his and for a second they both tossed aside what they were talking about to enjoy what they saw, smiles creeping, small and private over both of their lips. And then the second was past and Lisa’s lips were tipping rueful, aware of humor.

“Maybe when you were explaining you weren’t royalty?”

“Right.” That part made his shoulders shift a little and her own came down in response, a pre-defending motion that never followed through, just bubbled up instinctive to his discomfort. He shook his head and gave her an embarrassed smile. Watched her face soften in sympathy.

“Just that flying the Black Lion didn’t make me a king. Or any kind of nobility. That Voltron is a team and while I lead it everyone is the same rank and equally important and powerful in their own right. Then I pointed them at the Princess as real royalty and pulled a retreat as soon as I could so that they’d focus on her talking about the Coalition instead of if they were treating me with enough diffidence.”

She made a sound, near silent exhale, laughter and commiseration at the same time and he, for the first time, let himself feel the humor of the situation too and chuckled, lowering his head to be closer to her so their shared, muted laughter was private and just for them. His arm moved but he remembered to plant it on the computer terminal next to her instead of hugging her. It still left her in the angle of his body and that was enough.

“They are very caught up in personal ranking,” she agreed. It went much further than a caste system on this planet. As far as Shiro could tell, every single member of the very vast and far reaching society had a specific and fluctuating rank in regards to every other member and they instinctively knew when they met someone whether the other was higher than them on that rank or lower and approximately how far simply by body stance. The subtlest shift in body stance could shift someone’s rank in regards to someone else’s as well. Like a constant game of Sorry or Shoots and Ladders but with much more social repercussion. It reminded him a bit of his own culture, the depth and length of bows and the way of addressing people verbally - except here it was cranked up to extreme levels and even more unspoken and subtle than back home.

“I don’t think they quite got the message about me not being nobility,” he offered and she laughed again, dipping her head so it was soft and warmed against his chest.

“Ro, you walk like the poster boy for the Space Program at the Galaxy Garrison. You even stand that way when you’re in ‘Representing’ mode, helmet under your arm, shoulders back and eyes ahead. If they pay half the attention to body language that they do, of course they’d assume you were someone amazing.” She lifted her head to give him a smile, a little teasing, full of affection. “And you are - but I don’t blame them, when you stand next to slouching Keith, fidgety Hunk, bored Pidge and puppy in a new house Lance if they think you’re the one in charge based on body language alone.”

He snorted - but it was laughter. She was right and it didn’t speak anything less of the rest of his team, just that ‘Representing’ as she put it, wasn’t exactly their top priority or something they’d been trained in the way he had long before he’d even become the Garrison’s poster boy. His head sank, just enough to almost touch hers.

“When you put it that way…. is that’s what’s bothering you?”

“No,” she didn’t hesitate over that so he knew she wasn’t dancing around something. “I kind of expect that when people get around you. You radiate trustworthy and steady and capable. It’s more - me” and the way she hesitated over the ‘me’ he knew they were getting to the root. She looked up at him and he moved his own head instinctively and from long habit so that their faces didn’t knock together. Her brows were down again.

“We haven’t done anything romantic while we’ve been here, right? I didn’t miss anything.” She already knew the answer but she was obviously double checking her own memory. Shiro ran through his because the answer should be obvious enough to not need to be asked but if she was asking for backup he’d take it seriously. After a minute he frowned. Shook his head.

“I haven’t even held your hand since we got here.”

“Mm,” the little hum said her observations agreed with his and her eyebrows didn’t lift out of their puzzled lower. Her lips pressed tight - debate whether to say something more or not and he waited, patient, knowing she’d tell him eventually. Her eyes met his.

“They’ve starting using a term when they address me and it took me a bit to get what it translated into out of them. I was ‘thigh Lisa’ because, well, I am. But now, without explaining why,” the edge of her eye winced, just enough that he picked up on it because he knew to watch for it. 

“I’m Consort Lisa.” Shot him a look. Emphasized: “ _ _Black__ Consort Lisa.”

It took him a few seconds - and then his own eyebrows jumped and he was caught somewhere between bursting into laughter and feeling a bit face smacked. He coughed instead to balance the two. Managed, after a few moments more, to add:

“Really?”

She sighed but she also relaxed next to him and he felt himself respond with the same relaxation. It wasn’t as if they were actually ashamed or trying to hide their relationship. It was just -

“I just wanted to make sure we hadn’t stepped out of line or something and not realized it,” her voice was softer, saying what his mind had been thinking. “I’m glad we’re together and I don’t mind anyone knowing but - we’re professional. And we’re here on professional duty. I didn’t want to have gotten sloppy about representing Voltron.”

Compared to the way other members of both their teams took ‘representing Voltron’ Shiro thought that he and Lisa were probably over the top with their own strict sense of it but that’s the way they were. He gave her a smile. Reached out and almost brushed the hair back from her face before turning it into a light squeeze to her shoulder.

“Someone probably said something. It’s not like we’ve done anything to tip them off.”


	6. moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro's a spaceman and his heart will always bleed stars. It doesn't mean lost though. A short little snippet to bring us all softly back home again at the end of the prompt week.

There was something very lonely about a night sky without a moon in it, Shiro realized, looking up. He had never really realized it before, not with the front of his head. But each time they touched down on another planet, he would find himself searching alien night skies for their moon or moons. Sometimes those alien night skies dazzled him with their plethoria of moons, near enough to take up half a sky, far enough to be little more than stars themselves, sometimes both, so that he could watch the moons dance past each other crossing each other’s surface from his view on the surface as they wound their way past. There was something very comforting about looking up into the night sky and seeing companion moons there. Traveling through the huge empty void of black space with their planet, always a step ahead or a step behind but always there, nearby, just moments from appearing somewhere in view.

Alien skies without moons felt lonely, as if they were missing something vital, solitary planets wending their way through eternity. All alone in the night.

It took him a week, waiting for supplies, for him to realize why he was feeling so restless. It took Lance complaining about the lack of tides in his beloved oceans for it to click into place what he was wandering outside at night to search for. This planet had no moon and its sky was never full of anything but stars.

Takashi loved the stars.

He loved a midnight sky full of them. They had been, since his childhood, all the promises of a future, all the mystery and welcome and adventure and desire he’d ever wanted. As a child he hadn’t snuck outside when he was supposed to be sleeping to look at the moon. Sometimes in fact, when the moon hung full and heavy, he’d resented it for taking so much of the canvas of the sky away from his stars.

And he didn’t feel this restlessness when he was in space. He could go, and had gone, months, and then years, surrounded by nothing but stars and feel as if he’d filled his soul to the brim and not feel any lack at all. Takashi didn’t need the moon when he was in space.

But, he realized, when his feet touched soil, when gravity pulled at him again and held him steady, when he could breath without tanks or hoses and it wasn’t stale recycled air but the air that was full of living plants and water, when the sun rose overhead and then slipped away to give him nights in rhythm - that’s when he needed the moon.

Because he was home. And he could travel as far away as he liked and love every second of it - but nothing felt the way being able to come home, to rest, to recharge, to heal and grow strong enough to take on the eternal dark again, the way being home did.

He needed his moon because the moon meant he was home.

“Hey.”

The greeting was soft and he was on his feet almost instantly, jumping down off of where he’d been sitting on Black’s resting paw, to head for it before his eyes had even honed in on source the way his ears had. Lisa, fresh back from a mission of her own, hair still damp and braided back from her face from the shower she always took the second she was back on whatever passed for ‘home base’ that time was smiling as she came around the side of his lion and her arms were already lifting and open for him, a ‘welcome back’ that should have been reversed considering he’d been the one stationary and waiting but that didn’t feel that way to his heart as he gathered her into his arms and felt hers wind around him, tight and completing as well.

“Hey,” he lowered his face to nuzzle her damp hair, feeling bands in his chest loosening. She made a sound, exhaled almost silent laughter, bleeding off sudden excessive joy and snuggled in closer.

“Missed you,” he said even as she sighed: “oh how I missed you, Takashi,” and they both shared an exhaled laugh them, squeezing each other a bit tighter, a bit closer. Finally, after long enough that his chest had filled up from its hollow ache, she lifted her face without untangling herself so that she could look at him.

“I’m back now.”

And her pale skin was trapped moonlight, while her eyes held all the steady forever reassurance of a satellite that might be out of sight but was never far.

Traveling through the long dark cold together until the end of eternity.


End file.
